Some plants just struggle

Not every plant can be a Drosera spiralis. There are a handful of plants in my collection that always seem like they're in a slump. Drosera collinsiae is definitely like that.

On the plus side, that utric looks great.

This is a very handsome plant when it's happy, but it just seems to get deflated by everything. Heat for sure, and Pyrethrin, but also the Bayer 3-in-1, which didn't seem to affect any other plant in the collection. I can't remember the last time this one had more than 3 dewy leaves.

Another consistently wimpy plant is Drosera ×snyderi, which is D. dielsiana × nidiformis.

They actually look pretty decent right now.

There were originally 5 plants in each pot. The one on the right clearly had a bit of a crash recently, but all of them look super set back whenever I have to spray for bugs or whatever. Funny plant.

A very funny case is Drosera schizandra. I've got two pots, and they're looking pretty different right now.

Spinach anyone?

There's a little pup in the bottom of the pot actually.

They're also looking pretty different than they looked back in January. I don't think there's been enough heat to cause a crash like this, and nothing else weird has happened. Who knows? This is a famously temperamental species, after all.


This next is a funny one. I got this Pinguicula esseriana from California Carnivores a year ago. It certainly hasn't grown, and looks to have shrunk back a bit in fact.

Little guy is lost down in there!

I don't know why that would be the case, because a bit later I received some small P. esseriana starts, and those are doing much better.

Look at all the little babies.

I should really just scoop out that first one and put it in the second pot to free up some space in the tray. I wish it would put on some size!

On a more hopeful note, the itty bitty Cephalotus follicularis I got in a trade a bit ago seems to be settling in rather than dying off.

We've got a long road to go, but we're off to a good start!

I believe that's a new pitcher on the upper right, and it's certainly a new leaf on the lower right. Progress!

The Drosera hamiltonii are a funny case. These look absolutely terrible, right?

Sooooo ugly right now.

The thing is, they're just fine. I fed a bunch of plants (including these) a week ago or so, and D. hamiltonii take forever to look good after feeding. The thing is, when they look good they look really good. Weird little sundews.

Finally, a pygmy that seems to have no idea whether or not it likes me.

I love all pygmies, even the fussy ones.

Drosera spilos is the only pygmy I've got that seems to go dormant at all in my conditions, and as you can see there are a couple of them that are dormant right now, in the middle of winter. Amusingly, this is as good as this pot has ever looked. No idea why. Sorry you don't like it here as much little guy!

Plants are weird.

A bit of trading

I haven't done much trading lately. I've been a bit too busy to deal with receiving bare-root plants, and I don't have any space in my collection anyway. But I've recently started hunting for South America Drosera (if you've got extra and would like to work something out, email me at sundews.etc@gmail.com), so I wound up doing a couple trades.

Drosera felix is getting acclimated to its new home with a bit of boosted humidity.

Time to get in shape little guy.

Actually, I just looked it up on Wikipedia and I guess D. felix is now considered synonymous with Drosera kaieteurensis? That's too bad, felix is a cuter specific epithet (it means "happy"). Cute little plant in any case!

I also got some leaf cuttings of Drosera latifolia.

Leaf cuttings always make me a bit anxious.

And a nice big root of Drosera graomogolensis.

Root cuttings are much less fraught.

I'm looking forward to these guys striking and growing out, but it'll be a few months at the earliest.

One of the people I was trading with wanted some Drosera hamiltonii, so I decided to take some root cuttings. The roots had gone insane and grown into the pot, and I ended up with several extra. So I potted them up too!

I'm running out of room still.

Hopefully these grow in pretty quickly, since I oriented the root vertically.

In other propagation news, I finally managed to get a strike on Pinguicula "Yucca Doo 1717".

New baby plants!

I've done several pulls of this plant, but this is the first one that didn't wither away immediately. It's just in time too, since it looks like one of my adult plants above it is melting away itself.

Field Trip: Funny stuff at Predatory Plants

Yesterday I decided to go hang out in San Francisco with my friend Josh, owner of Predatory Plants. I thought I'd head home early to beat the commute traffic, but unfortunately the commute traffic got started around 1 pm, so I ended up sitting around his greenhouse checking out all the weird stuff he's got around (and also catching up on all the carnivorous plant gossip).

This Nepenthes glandulifera flower stalk looks like a certain other prized inflorescence.

Like a teddy bear.

This plant is so fuzzy it's ridiculous.

The clump of Drosera omissa × pulchella is just about to attain sentience.

Be careful of pygmy hybrids.

Meanwhile the Drosera scorpioides are looking quite Dr. Seuss-like.

They look so fragile.

I correctly guessed that these plants are three years old. It's fun having extremely niche expertise.

Josh discovered something funny about his pots of Pinguicula planifolia.

They're attractive plants, just baffling.

See that hole in the pot? It's hollow underneath. I guess in the two-plus years these have been growing here the bottom layer of soil has gradually been washed away, while the top is held together by the moss. Josh says he's afraid to mess with it now, since the plants seem to be fine.

I had to stop to admire this fine patch of Drosera filiformis Florida red.

I love this plant. Great color.

These are around two years old. Really lovely plants! I wish mine would get a move on and start filling out.

Also, Josh recently got into growing Cephalotus, and the results are looking pretty good!

So squat and hairy!

Everybody loves Cephs. If there was more of a consensus on how to grow them (and an easier way to produce them) I'm sure they'd become one of the most popular plants in cultivation.

Towards the end of the day Josh was planting up some Drosera hamiltonii to a larger tray. For every plant he repotted he got a root cutting to start a new one. It's a very efficient system.

Those are some good-looking roots.

Seeing all those D. hamiltonii made me want to check in on my own when I got home. They're looking great!

Dew like crazy.

I love seeing the new leaves unfurling.

This is definitely one of those species where the less you mess with them the better they look. I think I spotted a root or two creeping into the tray though. I should get some propagation going. Look at those plants!

A study in dew

I'm off traveling right now! I took some pictures of some of my dewiest plants before I left so I could share them with you all.

Drosera hamiltonii looking about as good as they ever do. It's pretty good!

Drosera prolifera has really liked the cooler temperatures in the garage.

Drosera capensis red form leaf just showing off.

Drosera aliciae from the Community Pot. Great plant!

These are the best-looking Drosera adelae in the colony right now. Lovely!

Sundews are the coolest.

This post is just for sundews

Man, it's been feeling like Sarracenia Etc. around here. I must plead circumstance – first of all, I've got a lot of room for new Sarracenia and very little for new Drosera. It's also spring, so all the pitchers are waking up. And finally I keep battling the aphids in my indoor collection. But there's lots going on still, so let's get back to basics and look at some sundews.

First up, the season is over for my two tuberous species, Drosera ramellosa and Drosera rupicola.

This spot is now occupied by my new Drosera slackii.

They definitely went dormant earlier than expected. Now I've set them to dry out, after which I might see what the situation with the tubers is. At the very least I'm going to remove that horrible cap of moss on the pot and replace it with a layer of sand.

My other summer-dormant sundew, Drosera cistiflora, is still very much awake, and enjoying having been recently fed.

Looks like a feast.

 It hasn't formed a stem yet this year, and considering how late we are in the season I doubt that it will. Still, I'm glad that it's apparently so healthy. This one will almost certainly come back next season.

One of my smaller Drosera filiformis plants has woken up.

Always propagate. It's like insurance.

This is very satisfying, since the one that was on its way a couple months ago is now, beyond much doubt, definitely dead.

The question now is: do I keep waiting?

Maybe the shock of being moved up closer to the lights was just too much for it. I'll let the one that's still alive get a bit bigger before the move, I guess.

The first of my Drosera intermedia 'Cuba' seems to be waking up as well.

Wake up little guy.

This is the only plant among the 3 pots of D. 'Cuba' that seems to be waking, though the others are definitely still alive. We'll see.

Another Drosera hamiltonii has apparently sprouted from the roots.

I didn't expect to see these plants start offsetting.

This was sort of a surprise, since this species has always seemed only barely satisfied in my conditions. I guess it can't be so bad.

The two Drosera anglica CA × HI plantlets from the Summer Batch that I thought had died have apparently come back.

Propagation can surprise you.

I've fed them, so hopefully in a month or two we'll have some more of this excellent plant available.

Finally, the Drosera indica situation is still completely out of control.

This is too many plants.

I'm in the process of hardening these guys off. What I'll do after that is anyone's guess.

Feels good to get back to sundews! The aphids seem to be in retreat, so hopefully I'll be able to get back to normal sooner rather than later.

Random pictures of pretty sundews

I've been talking a lot about stuff that's not from genus Drosera lately. It's time to get back down to brass tacks. Look at this Drosera venusta. Just look at it.

If you look closely, you can see that D. venusta has snap tentacles. Interesting!

This is easily, easily the best this plant has ever looked for me. Much better than it looked back in September. Maybe it's the cooler temperatures that have this plant looking better, or maybe it's just finally acclimated to my conditions. Or maybe it's random. I've heard from some other growers that it just looks great or looks terrible randomly. At least it's looking great now!

Another plant that's been doing pretty well is Drosera madagascariensis. It's mostly recovered from blooming.

Got that lean on.

I didn't get any seed the last time it bloomed, so I've been clipping the flower stalks. I think I'll have to do a stem cutting soon, since there's a serious wiggle on the largest plant. I'll also probably start some more leaf cuttings.

I've also got a couple of Drosera hamiltonii that are in one of their "looking good" phases.

Very lovely colors on this plant.

A different clone.

This species is sort of weird in my conditions. When I feed them they'll lose their dew for like 6 weeks, and then they dew up again and look great, which temps me into feeding them again. I think they might like a taller pot and an airier mix, but I don't know when I'll get around to repotting them again. Ah well, it's not so bad.

Finally, things are progressing well on Operation: Nice-looking Drosera sessilifolia.

Lovely glow on this sundew.

Moving right along!

NASC auction acquisitions

I've talked about a couple of the plants I won in the NASC auction – the pygmies and the Utricularia calcyfida – but there are several sundews that for one reason or another I haven't gotten around to discussing. In part I was letting them acclimate to my conditions (and making sure none croaked), and in part I was just too lazy.

First up, here's Drosera prolifera.

D. prolifera still looking a bit floppy.

This was the last plant to arrive, and is still a bit straggly. It's put out one new leaf since being in my care, and I'm not too worried about it in the long term, though I do need to pot it up into something a little larger. It arrived with a couple of droopy flower stalks though, and – true to its name – has started a plantlet in the tray water on one of them.

A wee little plantlet.

This bodes well for the future at least.

One of the more uncommon plants I got is Drosera hamiltonii. It's an Australian sundew which is sometimes a companion plant to Cephalotus follicularis. I ended up with plants with 2 different sets of location data ("Esperence, SW Australia", and "Western Australia"). The grower who put them up for bid wasn't 100% sure, but suspected they might be different clones, which would be important, since D. hamiltonii doesn't self-fertilize.

Drosera hamiltonii slowly getting comfortable.

These guys have been the most reluctant to settle into my conditions. I'm not sure what exactly they want, but there's some dew production so maybe they're just a bit slower growing than the others. We'll find out going forward.

Hopefully a different clone!

These are very attractive when grown well, so I hope they settle in and start to grow. I may try transplanting a seedling or two into LFS to see if they like that better, but that'll be later on.

I also got a couple of hybrids in the deal. This is Drosera ultramafica x spatulata.

The brilliant red of this hybrid really sold it for me.

It's got some amazing colors, I'm just waiting for it to get some new growth and really fill out. The Drosera x tokaiensis though...

This plant has been flowering non-stop. Luckily the flowers are sterile.

This is a man-made D. tokaiensis hybrid, which means it's sterile, unlike the naturally occurring D. spatulata x rotundifolia hybrid (more information here). It's also vigorous as hell – it looks like it's been here for months, rather than weeks.

One of the most exciting plants I won is Drosera anglica CA x HI. This plant is a result of careful breeding between the small, tropical, Hawai'ian form of D. anglica with a larger temperate form from California. The result is a large, vigorous, beautiful plant with no dormancy requirement.

The elegant D. anglica CA x HI was the early favorite among my housemates.

It's not looking its best, since it was fed 2 days before this picture, but when all the leaves are fresh it's very striking. Long, upright petioles and delicate oval laminae – what's not to love.

Finally, I got a plant I'd been looking for for months – Drosera madagascarensis.

I just love how fragile the stalks end up looking. So delicate.

This whimsical, stem-forming South African sundew had been on my radar for some time, and I was super pleased to win one, especially one with location data (Presqu'ile de Masoala, Madagascar). I lost one of the seedlings, but I've still got 4 plants doing great.

The NASC auction was a major event for me – I fleshed out my collection, and my money went to help preserve carnivorous plant habitat and genetic diversity. I intend to donate a lot more plants next year.

It's really fun to grow carnivorous plants :)